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Comic Books

Disney Italy created Paperinik, Donald Duck's Super Hero alter ego... who is actually an Unscrupulous Hero who sadistically torments anyone pissing Donald off but gets mistaken for an actual superhero, by characters and some writers and readers alike, because criminals are at or near the top of his shit list; whenever the writers remember his origins he's chased by the whole police force because he's just that scary, has gadgets to spray acid (for use on locks, fortunately) and to wipe out memories, stopped going around with an actual M1911 pistol only after replacing it with a multi-purpose beam weapon that includes a Disintegrator Ray, and, in an early story, tried to murder Gladstone before thousands of witnesses (disguised as a mere and well-deserved kick in the butt... that threw Gladstone from a tower).

The Paperinik New Adventures series, inspired by American superhero comics, introduced the Evronians, an Horde of Alien Locusts out to eat our emotions (save for a few people to keep as cattle) and transform us into Slave Mooks. Also, a survivor of Xerba, a planet invaded by the Evronians, has transformed herself into a Physical Goddess, out to commit genocide against the Evronians as payback for their invasion of her homeworld.

EC Comics. The entire company output qualifies, even after correcting for Values Dissonance for their being published in the 1950s. Even back then, however, Moral Guardians raised plenty of objections that their comic books were inappropriate for kids; EC strenuously resisted censorship until The Comics Code went into effect.

Aside for the above-mentioned Paperinik and Paperinik New Adventures, Disney Italy has created W.I.T.C.H. (with plenty of nightmarish situations and enough instances of Getting Crap Past the Radar to deserve an entire page here, Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine (in which Mickey Mouse finds himself operating in a city dirtier than Gotham), and has a habit of showing Scrooge shooting at someone with intent to maim (with a rock salt-loaded blunderbuss) or, in the past, kill (with a buckshot-loaded double-barreled shotgun).

One of the main characters of Rat-Man is Cinzia Otherside, a blonde transexual prostitute with a 30-cm penis in love with the protagonist and often trying to do him. Then the various stories include one-off gags (with Cinzia having originated as one) such as Bambi's mother returning to life as a Flesh-Eating Zombie and eating Bambi (it was the storyline parodying The Walking Dead)...

The Marvel Adventures line is written for the 5-12 kid demographic, but it seems designed to address most of the adult audience's criticism of the Marvel line: it has a much less confusing continuity, steers away from the Wangst and bleakness the main line tended to indulge in, and sidestepped the whole Civil War fiasco, and the rest of the dueling-author messes completely. Marvel Adventures appeals to adults who liked mainstream Marvel Comics from the 1960s to 1980s, IE when they were targeted to kids and teens. The fact that said period is largely considered to be the company's hey-day is a reminder that Tropes Are Not Bad. (Also, forget the 80s; Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man has the Blonde Phantom as a Recurrer. Remember her? No? Ask your grandparents.)

Interestingly, as much as Darker and Edgier is considered a good thing, it is quite lighter than the mainstream comics. It turns out that if you tell a good story, people will enjoy it over a poor one that has more blood, sex, and swearing.

The British G1 My Little Pony comics. The most well-known story ("Applejack once killed a man") involves Applejack saving ponies who are forced to be slaves and have gone blind from being in the dark so long. Applejack kills the Wizard who's forcing them to dig up gems (the comic says that she killed him by accident, but you can see her bucking him into a chasm plain as day), and gems from his throne get lodged in the blind ponies' eyes, which gives them back their vision. This is not the only Surprise Creepy in this comic for little girls.

Played strangely with Superior Spider-Man, which indulges in every excess contemporary comics are wont to indulge in (Doc Ock stealing Peter Parker's body, then jacking off in it?) - but the writer has gone on record as saying that he wants kids to read it.

Plankgas en Plastronneke is a Flemish comic book widely known for being endorsed by the famous Dutch comedian Urbanus. Did we mention that its jokes are almost all a form of Comedic Sociopathy? It has more gore and gross-out than Drawn Together and Family Guy combined.

Pitch is pretty tame in general, though some of the Black Comedy shots (there is a suicide joke in the beginning of the very first album), may make it off-putting for foreign viewers.

Tytus, Romek i A'tomek is one of the most well-liked Polish comic books, and often treated as a quintessential kids' series. However the later installments contain some surprisingly dark and mature themes, including sexual innuendo. For instance, about half of Book 22 has Tytus accidentally turn evil due to Phlebotinum and subsequently run a criminal gang whose activities are depicted quite realistically; meanwhile book 26 ("Tytus's Honeymoon") has Tytus and his wife fly a vehicle which is propelled by them having sex onboard.

Fanfic

Misuse of the ratings on Fan Fiction.Net and Archive of Our Own can lead to people believing this. There are fanfics on the former rated K or K+ that contain things like cursing and lemons. On the latter, the ratings have no clear guidelines, so it is common for fics that have F-bombs in their tags or explicit sexual kinks to be rated for general audiences.

The final story of Calvin and Hobbes: The Series, "Black Rain", contains the Slender Man. In a kid's show. This is only the tip of the iceberg (for one, the opening of the episode plays out like a non-murderous version of a horror movie).

My Little Unicorn preaches that things like love and tolerance are actually worthless and only brutal force can lead to true happiness. Characters get Killed Off for Real in rather brutal ways for little kids, and there are certain sexual innuendos to be found in the entire story. Yet the author proclaims that the fanfiction is way better entertainment for kids than the actual show it rips off of.

The best example for it may be a chapter of My Brave Pony: Star Fleet Magic II, in which Fluttershy is in the hospital to be operated on. A changeling slips in and tries to kill her by cutting her open and letting her bleed to death.

The creator of the fanon SpongeBob spinoff Warriors of Bikini Bottom claims the show is intended for middle school age and up, but that doesn't stop it from having characters discussing their sex lives (and on occasion, even having sex), swearing in the transcripts, and having various gory fights.

The Inside Out story Intercom has a K+ rating on Fanfiction.net, which is generally the equivalent to the original film's PG rating. In spite of that, however, this story is pretty dark (at least once Cerebus Syndrome kicks in) as it features rather mature subjects such as mental disorders and Riley deciding to take anti-psychosis medication behind her parents' back. Luckily the latter point is alleviated, but then worse problems begin to arise...

Newspaper Comics

This trope was invoked in a Bloom County strip, where one character is going around telling everyone "the awful truth" about, well, everything. He comes to Steve, and says "The truth is, Knight Rider is a kid's show!" to which Steve replies. "Can't be. Can't &%^#ing be!"

Little Nemo. It's a whole nightmare world! Though this is more of a shift in what is acceptable for children. It was a lot more open at that time as shown with other so-called children's books during that time like The Wind in the Willows, which would almost be impossible to publish as a kid's book now. There's even a panel where Little Nemo, who is about nine at that point, is reading Gulliver's Travels.

Depending on the incarnation, Starlight Express includes hate-motivated beatings, a Serial Killer villain, Domestic Abuse, marital infidelity, a young woman singing a solo about her favorite sexual experience, a retired prostitute, a character who maintains an equal-opportunity harem, an ocean's worth of sexual innuendo in general, and references to smoking, alcohol, and drugs. The show manages to get away with all these elements because the characters are anthropomorphic toy trains. The Las Vegas version of the musical, which featured the main female characters in showgirl costumes, actually wasn't intended for kids, but attracted family audiences regardless.

Theme Parks

In the 2011 Dance Off With the Star Wars Stars, which is for children, Darth Vader performs C. Lo Green's "F**k You!" (or at least the radio edit) during the freestyle half of the show.

G.I. Joe as a whole gets this treatment, actually. Because it happened in the comics, there are those older viewers/readers who think that every TV show and movie—past, present, future, and otherwise—should use real bullets instead of (the Hasbro-mandated) lasers, and that there should be more onscreen deaths simply because of the military nature of the concept and toyline (which goes all the way back to the 1960s or 70s; i.e., before the "Real American Hero" era). Aside from the aforementioned Resolute, the closest the fans got to a version of Joe they wanted was probably the live-action movie series.

For a short period of time, there were vibrating Harry Potter broomsticks in toystores. Which were enjoyed fondly by... well... all ages, until it was brought to the companies attention that not everyone was riding the broom pretending to play Quidditch...

In 2015, LEGO released a set that passed the LEGO Ideas submission and approval process... based upon The Big Bang Theory. Merchandise for a sitcom filled to the brim with sex jokes is being sold in LEGO Stores alongside themes like Legends of Chima and Ninjago. You know, for kids!

A Marvel Heroes set pits Deadpool and Magneto against Wolverine. While the latter two have had their share of violence in the comics, the release of R-rated, strip-club-featuring, innuendo-and-curse-soaked Deadpool makes this verging on Funny Aneurysm.

While not a big deal back in the 1960s when they were made, post-modernism pretty much guarantees that these bad boys won't be seeing a revival: Meet the Ding-a-Lings!

It should be noted just how much of Simon Furman's work fits into this category. When the writer of the bloodbath the Marvel Generation 2 comics became calls something too dark, you know you've taken Darker and EdgierUp to Eleven.

Furman was specifically concerned about the "For Kids" part of this trope. He was very much about darker, more fatal Transformers stories, but he was explicitly writing with an older audience in mind than the cartoon series are marketed towards.

It's a bit understandable, though, if you look at the premise devoid of context: Two factions of a race of alien war machines come to Earth, their war having gone on so long that battling for the resources our planet can give them to continue the war effort is more important than the war itself. The weakest of them has enough power to slaughter dozens of human soldiers and come away with nothing more than a badly-scratched paint job. At best, their feelings towards us are paternalistic, and they look down with a combination of pity and admiration on those of our species who see it as their sworn duty to defend us from them. At worst, they find us repulsive and enjoy slaughtering us when they have a chance. It sure doesn't sound like the backstory of a kids' franchise. . . yet that's exactly what it is.

Word of God has it that "Assigned Male" is aimed at kids. While the idea of having a trans child as a protagonist for kids to relate to is admirable, there still seems to be enough talk about genitalia to make any age uncomfortable, and has characters swearing in plain sight.

The creator of Liltoon once had an on-site notice stating that his comic is suitable for readers aged 10 and up, but the "Flushing the Soul" arc seems to belie that.

Schlock Mercenary: In-universe with the Schlock Mercenary cartoon. It's marketed at kids—complete with toys and coloring books—but is still based on the violent exploits of mercenaries.

Sonichu is nominally intended to be a children's comic, aimed for kids between the ages of 7 and 14...but that certainly doesn't stop its author from inserting scenes of bloody, brutal violence (up to and including a scene of a young girl mutilating a defenseless criminal with a pair of giant drills) and (supposedly) titillating sex (with an entire chapter dedicated to showing off the main characters' sexual anatomy). Needless to say, no children even read the comic in the first place.

The original Sonic the Comic was perfectly kid friendly. The fan-continuation Sonic the Comic is mostly on the same level however one arc is infamously dark. Stuck in the past with no modern technology, Tekno starts to have a mental breakdown. It ends with beating a villain to death. The fan outrage was very loud due to considering it overly dark and out of character. Eventually they retconned that Set survived the injuries, but that doesn't lessen the tone by much.

Web Original

Some of the Accidental Nightmare Fuel-overdosed family movies featured in The Cinema Snob lead him to question such an assumption. Examples include Red Riding Hood and The Monsters and Fun In Balloon Land (the latter in particular was described as "something a pedophile would film with captive children").

Doctor Steel's whole concept for "The Dr. Steel Show" was that of a kid's show that was just a little bit... warped. He also had a song, supposedly for a proposed kid's show, called "Smokey the Kid-Loving Trout" (graphic for this song on his website showed a stinking hobo-like anthropomorphic trout, complete with stogie, walking with children).

Baby! Love Your Body is a (thankfully defunct) internet series that is supposedly marketed towards children, particularly prepubescent children. The entire first episode is incredibly creepy, first starting off with the main characters listing a whole bunch of words used to describe female genitalia, including explicit words like pussy and cunt. Worst of all, they try to pass off those words as innocent. It gets even worse when the other characters are revealed, which are crossdressing men who are dressed up as vaginas, and flamboyantly describe the properties of a female vagina. The ending of the episode can only be described as a nightmarish LSD trip as one of the characters enters the vagina. Fortunately, it has not gone viral, nor has it received anything but negative feedback from those that have seen it, thus pulling the plug on future episodes being made.

Neopets is a rather weird example in itself; nowadays the target demographic audience is definitely for young children- but when this popular site first started out, it was mostly used by college (or university) students years ago. There are still remnants of this material from that time (such as the Ski-Lodge Mystery plot) floating around, waiting to be prime scariness for any children who happened to stumble across them.

Life in the Bay is an in-universe cartoon in We Are Our Adventuring Avatars which features plenty of torture, and some of it cannot be described directly. It has an in-universe rating of Y-5.

This is so prominent on Tumblr that it's become a running joke that people will overanalyzeany given children's media in an attempt to make it seem more "adult-friendly".

Comes up In-Universe in the Thrilling Adventure Hour Beyond Belief episode "Scream a Little Scream." Sadie Doyle refers to childrens' books written by one of the characters in the episode, which include life or death candy trials and a boy who was "french fried from the inside," prompting her husband Frank to ask if these books were really for children.

In-Universe example in Super Mario Logan: Boswer Junior's favorite show, "Doofy the Dragon", is aimed at children, but contains jokes where Doofy tries to kill himself with knives and guns and one episode involved him lighting himself on fire. Chef Pee-Pee thinks the show is a bad influence on him for these reasons and discourages Bowser Junior from doing anything he's seen on the show.

The YouTube channel Webs & Tiaras is an example of this, mainly a recurring theme of Your Cheating Heart and even some unintentional sexual undertones. It honestly seems more like a Crack Fic than anything aimed towards children aged seven and under.

While it appears Webs and Tiaras has toned things down, there's still SuperKidsTv...and it's even worse. Unlike Webs and Tiaras, not only are the sexual themes in Superkid's videos intentional, they also have gems such as Elsa and Ryder's baby dying in a gas explosion, and Sofiarevealing her nether regions in front of Ryder and Spiderman, which gives the former a NOSEBLEED. How this channel hasn't been terminated is a mystery. Once, they even averted Bloodless Carnage, showing Elsa graphically getting run over by a van!

Also, it seems that Superkids has been taking down their works, such as the aforementioned "revealing" video. Either they're changing their ways as well, or YouTube has found out about them.

This is very likely to come up when How Did This Get Made? reviews a kids' movie and contains scenes that one would not expect in a kids' film. For example, noting scenes like a near rape or the electric chair from Ernest Goes To Jail, or the fact that the antagonists of Top Dog are not only white supremacists, but make a racist "wetback" joke in the early portions of the movie that went over the hosts' heads, never mind a child's.

Bubblegum/candy cigarettes — and also, licorice pipes, chocolate cigars, candy cigarettes, and the infamous "Hippy Sippy". Aside from the last item, these are still sold today (although often with bowdlerised names like "candy sticks"). Even a few of the most ardent anti-smokers still feel a little pang of nostalgia for these, and feel kind of torn at the idea of taking them off the market.

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